Never Again
by pen.paper.green.day
Summary: I hate summaries. Anyway: spoilers for "Stan By Me", rated for language, and we see Marshall being the badass we all know he really is. I don't own a darn thing. one-shot


After dropping off the shell of what used to be his partner at her house, Marshall Mann drove back to the office. His house would be too empty, too desolate. He needed to be somewhere that he could do something, anything, to try and make some sense of what happened that day.

And, it was a way of being a little closer to Mary. She may not be in the office, but her desk, her things, her lingering scent would be. And Marshall knew that he would need these things if he planned on surviving the night without going insane.

He made his way through the building slowly, as if in a daze. Really, he was just deep in thought and self-loathing.

He couldn't believe he let this happen to her. Mary,_ his_ Mary, his exotic animal of a partner had been beaten, kidnapped, forced to see her sister's drug addict boyfriend die, and then almost raped and killed.

He was her partner, her self-appointed keeper. He was supposed to stop things like this from happening to her. You protect the one you love, you don't sit around doing nothing, hoping that she's okay.

Once in the office, Marshall passed by his desk, and sat at Mary's, needing to be at least this close to her if he couldn't be with her at that moment. He desperately wanted to, but she had made it clear that she didn't want any human contact, especially male contact.

God, he really wished that he had been the one to blow away the piece of shit that did this to her.

Needing something to do with his hands, he starting doing some of Mary's paperwork still on her desk. It gave him something to do, and took just enough of his mind off of the day's events, and what a lousy partner he was.

How long he did this he had no idea, but after a while, he could sense someone else in the room. He looked up from a case file to see Stan staring at him.

"What are you doing here, Marshall? And don't just say that you work here, because that's not gonna fly with me." Stan glared questioningly at him.

"I just… need something productive to do. So I can feel like I actually accomplished something today." Marshall replied, and ignored another knee-buckling wave of self-hatred.

"What the hell are you talking about? Today was a busy day for everyone involved. You did plenty."

Marshall scoffed, and replied sarcastically, "Oh, yeah, sure. She's off being beaten up and kidnapped, and I'm here, pushing papers. I did loads today."

"Well Christ, Marshall. You found her car and helped us get to her in time, what the hell else were you supposed to do?"

Marshall shot up to his feet.

"She's my partner! I'm supposed to protect her! I'm supposed to be there with her! I thought I'd been doing a good job of it, but then when my partner needs me most, where the hell am I? In the fucking office with my thumb up my ass doing nothing to help her! How can I face myself every day knowing that I failed her?"

Stan looked at him in surprised sympathy and said, "You didn't fail her. You found her, you got her out of there alive. And you helped her cope. Marshall, you did all that you could. Stop beating yourself up over it. You couldn't do any more than you did."

Marshall shook his head, hanging on to his guilt.

"I could've been there. I could've gone with her. But I didn't. I stayed here. And she almost died. Shit, when I got shot she was there for me the entire time, reassuring me that I'd be alright and all that jazz. And though you might take those things for granted under normal circumstances, they actually really helped me hold on. I couldn't even be there to tell her that she'd be okay, that she'd make it out of there. What the hell kind of partner am I? What kind of friend?!"

Now Stan just looked pissed off.

"Damn it, Marshall! Get it through your head: You did everything you could! You can't be with Mary 24/7, and you already take better care of her than her own mother ever did. You couldn't have known what was going to happen. Stop blaming yourself over something that's not your fault. If not for your sake, then for Mary's. You know she'd hate to see you like this."

"She should hate to see me anyway." Marshall muttered.

"Marshall. You're a smart guy. I know you are. So stop being an idiot! If you need an outlet for your anger, someone to blame, then blame that FBI son of a bitch who released the fact that Mary is a U.S. Marshal! I don't know about you, but I'd like to have some time alone with that bastard."

From the look on the man's face, Marshall could tell that Stan was serious about what he had just said. And, Marshall had to admit that he had a point. If he was going to do anything about what those bastards did to Mary, he was going to have to stop beating himself up. That would have to wait. For now he would just have to focus on finding Agent Asshole, and kick some serious FBI ass.

"Okay. Okay, you're right. Do we know where the waste of semen is?" he asked, all business. Now that he had an assignment, he could invest all his energy into it.

"Unfortunately, no. Not yet. But I plan on having long talk with the FBI director about this. I'll go do that right now, and you get some water or something. You look like you're gonna pass out, Marshall."

Stan exited the room, leaving Marshall standing there and, unnoticed to himself, shaking. He decided that if he were to do an efficient job of searching for the idiot FBI douche bag, he'd have to be in a good enough state to inflict as much pain as it took to satisfy his sudden bloodlust. So, Marshall did what Stan suggested, and made a bee-line for the vending machine.

On the way back to the office, he bumped into someone not looking where they were going. He lifted his head to apologize, that being the initial instinct his parents had raised him to have, but stopped when his eyes locked with none other than Agent Asshole's.

The bottle fell forgotten on the floor, and without a word of warning, Marshall swung at the man, taking maybe a little too much satisfaction out of the crunching noise of the man's nose breaking. The man swung back, cuffing Marshall's jaw, and then, for lack of a better phrase, _it was on._

The FBI idiot put up a good fight, but Marshall was riding on so much adrenaline, anger, and raw emotion that even the Hulk wouldn't have stood a chance. If Marshall had been given his way, he would've gladly killed the man and pissed on his grave, but before he could do the first, Stan and a few other men were breaking them up.

But, Marshall noticed with a smirk, Stan did toss in one good, solid punch to the bastard's head in the process. Stan dragged Marshall to his desk and forced him to sit down. He checked Marshall over, prodding and poking to see if anything was broken.

"Well, you should be fine. I recommend some whiskey, or hell, maybe some good bourbon and some ice. For your head, not just for the drink. Go home now, Marshall. That's an order."

Marshall nodded, and sighed. "Jeez, Stan. You should've just let me kill him."

Stan chuckled. "I know. But I'm going to give his director the honor of doing that. Now, **go home.**"

"Alright, alright. I'm gone. I can see when I'm not wanted." Marshall said, some of his old sarcastic self coming back. He wished that Mary had been there to see him wipe the floors with that piece of FBI crap. He could just hear her now: _Way to go, Poindexter. _

He sighed and left, praying to God or whoever else would listen that the woman he loved would be alright and back to her normal self soon. He needed her daily abuse. When it came down to it, she was much nicer to him than he was to himself.

He'd call her in the morning, he decided. He's call her, see what she needed, and then he's never leave her side again. This would _never_ happen again. Never.

It couldn't. He wouldn't survive it a second time.


End file.
